You are roughly Henry’s contemporary, and like him a star jouster, but you are also clever enough to take on a role in the management of his finances which is deliberately impenetrable: you are in charge of the ‘secret funds’.
This may be your undoing. When Thomas Cromwell comes marauding along, he doesn’t want secrets; he wants complete charge of the revenue and what happens to it. You may take a certain amount of pleasure in thwarting him. As long as you and your friends control how the King lives day to day, you can limit Cromwell’s access. It’s a setback when he is given rooms at Greenwich that communicate directly with Henry’s. But the Privy Chamber’s mandarin workings are very hard to challenge.
You are also aware that Cromwell is involved in a clean-up of border jurisdiction, and is intent on reforming the ineffectual government of Wales. You’re not stopping him. But you’re not exactly helping him either. The present situation suits you nicely.
You have an area of weakness; though you’re not a child, like Francis Weston, and you should know better, you’ve become too close to Anne Boleyn.
You are a widower, and you are considered engaged to Mary Shelton, Anne’s cousin and lady-in-waiting. You’d better hurry up, because Mary is being hotly pursued as a lover, not least by Weston. But you don’t hurry: why is that? Anne puts the question in public, on 30th April 1536. Tormented, you quarrel with her, and are overheard. It sounds as if you and Anne plan to marry, in the event of the King’s premature death. This is dangerous; it’s a short step from saying ‘the King might die’ to saying ‘the King will die.’ Preparing for a tournament at Greenwich, you are ignorant of the construction being placed on the quarrel.
On the day of the joust, Henry is in the spectator’s stands. You’re having a bad day; your horse acts up and won’t enter the lists, and Henry offers you one of his own standby string of mounts. But before the sport gets underway, Cromwell’s nephew, the irritatingly confident Richard, strides up to Henry and whispers something to him: a nasty piece of news. Henry rises from his place. He will ride back to London. You are commanded to ride with him.
On the journey he tells you that you are an adulterer. You have slept with his wife. You are shocked; and probably, you are also innocent. Confess, he says, and I’ll be good to you. There can be mercy.
You don’t believe it. It’s an escalating horror. Back in Whitehall you are interrogated by Master Treasurer, William Fitzwilliam, one of Cromwell’s wingmen. You admit something. Perhaps that, yes, you are in love with Anne. You immediately retract what you have said. You don’t admit adultery. But you seem resigned to what follows. You make no inelegant protest. Perhaps you have too much experience to think you can fight off Cromwell. You must wonder why the King has so abruptly turned against you. Possibly you know the one secret Henry tries to keep from the world; he’s sometimes impotent. Perhaps Anne told you. But perhaps it was Henry himself, in an outbreak of late-night confidence: later regretted, and with fatal consequences. Perhaps he thought you were laughing at him, together with his wife: that’s the one thing he can’t forgive.
SIR WILLIAM BRERETON
You come from a powerful Cheshire family and, like your friend Norris, you are a marcher lord, with lands on the disturbed and contentious Welsh border. You are a member of Henry’s Privy Chamber, one of his inner circle, but when you are arrested and named as one of the Queen’s lovers, there is a certain amount of incredulity. No one thinks you are particularly close to Anne. Thomas Wyatt, after your death, has trouble writing a farewell verse about you. He says he hardly knows you and, frankly, not too many people are complaining about your demise.
Thomas Cromwell believes in economy of means. He’s looking for ‘lovers’, and you’re standing about. Alas for romance, it’s all about Welsh government. In 1534, you execute, illegally, a Welshman called Eyton, who had killed one of your servants in a fight, but who has been acquitted by a London jury. This is what Cromwell has set his face against: the arbitrary ‘justice’ meted out by little lords. He marks your card. But you’re too arrogant to notice.
On the scaffold you seem free from illusion: ‘I have deserved the death.’ You can hardly complain and, to your credit, you don’t. You have to learn the new, Cromwellian system of weights and measures: one English courtier, in high favour with the King and from a powerful family, is worth no more than one obscure and friendless Welshman.
MARK SMEATON
You are about twenty-three at your death, but your origins are not known; they are humble. You are a talented musician brought up from teenage years in Wolsey’s household, and transferring to the Court at Wolsey’s fall. You are part of George Boleyn’s coterie and by 1535 you are suspiciously well-dressed and living beyond your official means. Where are you getting the money?
You appear to have become obsessed with the Queen. You lurk outside her rooms, looking lovelorn, in the hope of a word from her. She explains to you, ‘You cannot look to have me speak to you as if you were a gentleman, because you be an inferior person.’ You sigh, ‘A look suffices.’ You turn your back and melt away. And so you glide towards disaster.
At the end of April 1536, the Court is alive with rumour but you do not suspect anything when you are invited to Thomas Cromwell’s house in Stepney. You think you’re going to provide entertainment, but don’t guess as to its nature. By the time you leave the following day, en route to the Tower, you have confessed to being the Queen’s lover and have implicated several other men. There are rumours that you were tortured at Cromwell’s house and racked at the Tower. Torture is illegal in England without a royal warrant and it would not be like Cromwell to step outside the law. It’s most likely that you are terrorised or tricked or both. If you had been racked at the Tower you would probably have been unable to walk to your impending execution. As a sign of favour, because you’ve been so helpful, you are allowed a gentleman’s death by the axe instead of the common man’s demise at the end of a rope.
GEORGE BOLEYN, LORD ROCHFORD
The younger brother of Anne and Mary, you are recognised in your lifetime as an accomplished and attractive young man, but there is a curious blank in history where you should be. You were a busy Court poet but your verses are lost. You were said to be handsome but no picture remains. You were committed to religious reform but your only religious writings are translations. You are oddly insubstantial and so, in these plays, you are your clothes: flamboyant, expensive and a bit silly.
You were brought to Court by your father when you were ten, for the Christmas celebrations, and stayed on to become one of the King’s pages. You receive an excellent humanist education, speak some Italian as well as Latin and French, and are considered gifted. As you grow up you hardly know your sisters. This is quite usual for the time. But when you meet as adults, you and Anne become very close.
By the age of twenty, you are part of the King’s Privy Chamber. Wolsey threw you out in 1525 when he reorganised the King’s personal staff. But with both sisters, at one time or another, in the King’s bed, your success is assured. You really know nothing except Court life. As Anne and the King move towards marriage, you are sent on several embassies to France. Your inexperience is not appreciated but you don’t create any disasters. You’re a good talker, which Henry likes. Ambassador Chapuys finds you personable and a civilised young man to deal with, but says you are always starting arguments about religion.
You do not like your wife and are said to be a great womaniser. When Anne becomes Queen you become Lord Rochford and acquire several offices of State. Your path inevitably crosses and re-crosses the path of Thomas Cromwell. You have nuisance value to him and when you are made Warden of the Cinque Ports, an important